Hereinafter, a digital image is interchangeably referred to as simply a “picture” or an “image” unless expressly disambiguated where used. An image is “posted” to social media when a user (“posting user”) makes the image available to one or more other users of the social media platform.
It is common for users to post images on social media for sharing with other users. Some posted images are available to any user of a given social media platform, or even to users outside the social media platform. Some posted images are available to a group of users in the posting user's social network.
Presently, some information is associated with an image in the form of image metadata. The metadata includes information such as filename, image size, date and time the image was captured, geographical location where the image was captured, copyright or source information, and the like. Presently, the metadata is prepopulated in the image file, remains static or unchanging once associated with the image, and controlled by the publisher of the image. A posting user can be, but need not be, the publisher of a posted image, and the posting user may or may not be able to modify the metadata of the posted image.